 Welcome to all of you. We're so glad that you're joining us here for another episode, an exciting episode of The Non-Profit Show. Today we have with us Gong Wang joining us from Civic Champs. And he's here to share with us what it's like to unlock grants through volunteer programs. And he's got some innovative software and backing for this. So stay with us. Before we jump into this conversation with him, we would like to remind all of our viewers and our listeners, every single one of you, who we are. So hello, Julia. Julia Patrick, she serves as the CEO of the American Non-Profit Academy. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group, also known as the Non-Profit Nerd. So honored to be alongside Julia each and every day for these conversations. Really excited, you know, when we started this, it was a lot of like, you know, a labor of love. And every single day now, if I miss an episode, I really miss the episode. So it's, you know, it's grown near and dear to my heart. So want to extend also just huge gratitude to our amazing sponsors. Want to, you know, say thank you so very much to Blumerang, American Non-Profit Academy, Fundraising Academy with National University, Non-Profit Thought Leader, Your Part-Time Controller, Staffing Boutique, as well as Non-Profit Nerd. These companies, as I like to remind you, their mission is your mission. So they are here to help you do more good in around and throughout your community. They're awesome people and really just so glad to have their support and their investment, not just here in these episodes, but truly in our community around the globe. So thank you to our amazing sponsors. And hey, if you missed any of our episodes or you want to go back and learn more about volunteer engagement and how you can make that a financial commitment for your organization, you can share this conversation via Roku, YouTube, Vimeo, Fire TV, and those of you that are podcast listeners. I know I am. You can queue us up there as well wherever you stream your podcast. So this conversation that we're about to have with Gung will be open and live in just a few couple of hours. So always same day, I'm really excited for that. So without further ado, so excited to extend a warm welcome again to the CEO of Civic Champs, Gung Wong. Welcome. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, we are really excited. Again, the origin of you coming here and us knowing a little bit about you and Civic Champs, but we're gonna learn a lot more, really goes out to a tip of the cap to Steven Shattuck. So thank you so much for that. So Gung, you've got innovative software platform. You've got a vast educational knowledge and support that surrounds you as you move into the sector. Really fascinating. Would you take us a little through a little bit of your journey of how you got here and a little bit about Civic Champs? Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I was a former management consultant, had a couple of tech startups in the past that we were fortunate we were able to sell. One was the apartment search engine called Rent Jungle. Another did social media management as an agency and we had cool tech that surface niche content for very specific organizations and serve some nonprofits actually within that company. And so I wanted to do something that had a bit more social impact. I wanna do something new again, something entrepreneurial. And I've always been a big fan of volunteerism both personally, but also I think even, we launched in 2019. And so I reflected on this fact that volunteerism is one of the few ways that people in our communities come together, right? And we come together in a very positive way, right? And so everyone feels good when we go to a habitat built, right? And then you see the walls go up and you feel good when you go to the food bank or the community kitchen. And it doesn't matter what your background is, right? Whether that's ethnically, whether that's by gender or by social economics, right? And I thought that was really powerful just given all the things that are happening today with sort of this like polarization that we see a lot of. And so those are some of the sort of inspirations for First Civic Champs. And we wanted to create a mobile game initially to encourage volunteers that are sort of gamified like a Pokemon Go, but for volunteering. But we realized that as we talked to lots of nonprofits that we could have an even bigger impact by serving the nonprofits directly, making it easy for folks to do the day to day, right? Whether that's registrations, onboarding, hour tracking. And so for example, we use geofencing. So when you show up on site, it's like, hey, Julie, are you here for habitat today? And you say, yep, and that's it, right? Everything's very simple, easy. And so that's what we do. I love this. And I'm really even more impressed, having learned a little bit about your story before we came on live, that you did this in 2019. And then, wow, 2020 happened. And the first thing that got disrupted was volunteering. So fascinating to hear your story and link it through to where we are today. Really, really interesting. You know, one of the things that we've learned so much about volunteerism and how empowering it is in so many ways and in so many of those ways are hard to measure. But one of the things that you're gonna share with us is this concept of volunteer matching grants. And let's start off with what are they and how do they function? Yeah, so volunteer matching grants, they're a corporate program, typically. And so what happens is, I think a lot of folks know about matching donation programs, which may be a fidelity or big company says, if one of my employees donates $25, I'll match that donation dollar for dollar, right? What these companies often also have is a sort of dollars for doers program. And so they say, hey, if you volunteer at a local nonprofit, I'll also make a financial contribution on your behalf. And so that's sort of the genesis of the program. Sometimes they'll do it where it's dollar for dollar, right? So one hour is worth $10 per hour. Other times they'll do it by event. And some of them will have thresholds, right? They say, hey, if you volunteer a minimum of 20 or 40 hours, I'll write a big grant of $551,000 for the nonprofit of your choice. So it's a really great way, I think, to get some additional donations for the nonprofits. Is this like for everything from like picking up trash on a Saturday morning to board service? Or, I mean, like, how does this range? I think so most of the companies are pretty flexible. So 40% of Fortune 500 companies offer this. And so it's a lot of companies, including folks like Starbucks, Exxon. And so pretty much if you think about these large brands, and there's almost a Starbucks anywhere, but you don't think about the fact that, hey, if a barista comes and volunteers with you, you can get $5 per hour that they just volunteered, right? And they just have to submit something back. But they're pretty flexible. So it can be for board service, it could be for picking up the trash, like you said, as long as you're 501C3, typically, that's the requirement. But otherwise, they're pretty open. This is so fascinating to me. That is a great question, Julia. I was thinking the same thing, you know, like, where in the spectrum does this really reside or could it reside? And I just, I love the endorphins that being of service provide. And you mentioned this, Gong, you know, really like, you know, if we go to a habitat build or we go to a food bank, all of the stereotypes, all of the polarization tends to just kind of fall away, you know? And we're connected at the root and the core of altruistic humanism, I think, which is just, I don't know, it's so nice. I don't want to get too warm and fuzzy for all of us, but, you know, I love that you said there's 40%. I'd love to see that over half though, right? Like how do we get that needle further? But definitely making a dent in this. So you started this in 19 and I noticed that correlation as well, Julia, right? So 19, is this for any kind of volunteering remote as well as in person, like out of community? Are there any kind of boundaries around this? No, you mean in terms of the volunteer management grants? Yes. Yeah, no, I don't think so. I mean, the boundaries are oftentimes if you're international, that makes it a little bit trickier. And so the donations need to usually go to a US based 501C3 mostly because of, you know, companies of that size, they often have subsidiaries overseas and so they'll have their own programs potentially for the local chapters, if you will. But otherwise, yeah, there's not a lot of limitations here. They do normally ask the nonprofit to validate or verify that this work has been done. And so having a database, right? Having a way to track it, that's important as well. Yeah, well, let's talk about the partnership of corporate philanthropy as well as volunteering. Can you tell us like where this section might intersect and how we can best leverage these relationships? Sure, absolutely. So, I mean, I think companies are always looking, for multiple reasons on why they wanna do corporate philanthropy or volunteering, right? I think part of it's marketing, of course, right? They wanna be seen as companies that are getting back to their communities and that's great for marketing. I think from a recruiting standpoint, it makes a big difference, especially now you see, especially with Gen Z workers that mission is such a big, and values is such a big reason that they choose between different companies. And then, of course, when I was in corporate, you're always looking for team building events, right? And then sort of like ways for people to connect and have fun and feel good, right? So that those endorphins, now you associate also with your company, which is fantastic. And then the last piece is some more, let's call it forward thinking companies, we'll see this as an opportunity to develop skills for their employees, right? So, especially if you're doing a skill-based volunteering, maybe you're helping with marketing or websites or you're serving on a board, right? You're building some leadership skills. And so I think those, all of those reasons are combined in terms of why companies are interested. Geng, I'm curious, can you talk to us about some of the dollar amounts that you've seen organizations receive or be a recipient of since you initiated this in 2019? What are some of these dollar amounts that have made an impact? Sure, yeah. So I would say, the bigger ones are usually around the events, right? And so, and it often goes beyond even their stated, program parameters, right? And so oftentimes a company will donate an even bigger check for their day of service to the nonprofits of their choice. And so I've seen anywhere between 10, $20,000 checks for a day of service, right? That they, in addition to giving time that they're providing to the nonprofits. Now, of course some of that is covering some costs, that sort of facilitating the experience. I think for me, the really big opportunity is not just in the dollars you're receiving directly, right? But think about the relationship you're building with that company as well. These are folks that might be willing to give in the future and you have companies that often have their favorite nonprofits, right? And that starts somewhere, right? And oftentimes it's that first event, and they say, hey, I had a great time. My people really loved coming here. We're gonna do this every single year, right? And now you have a recurring stream. The other way to think about it is, there's this great symbiotic relationship between volunteers and donors, right? So most donors are volunteers, most volunteers are also donors. They're more likely to do either, right? Once they do the other. And so if you can sort of recruit, right? Use this as a recruitment engine to get volunteers that have never been exposed to you. That's also gonna drive your individual donations, right? You are speaking my love language. I absolutely, like this is often an entry point for so many people as you look at, whether it's a run or race event, what I was just with an organization, we did a hike. And it's, if you build a team and then you could have a team of 10, you could have a team of a thousand depending on what that event could warrant. But this is expanding that ripple and expanding that brand, the awareness, the mission, the impact into so many corners of possibilities. So I do see the value in this and I know that so many organizations, Julia, you remember now almost four years ago, speaking to organizations saying, we don't know if we're gonna make it through this global health pandemic. And a lot of that gong was attributed to their lack of volunteer engagement. So. Absolutely. And I think too, just as we are navigating out of this third year, it's really an interesting time because it's spring, the weather's changing. People are really, I think, ready and more open to doing volunteer or group events. So I feel like if nothing else, we have this kind of trajectory of interest, if you will, that we're missing out in the nonprofit sector if we don't look at this as an opportunity. And it is event season, right? You and I, Julia, we've already been to several this season and there's many more on our agenda. So now is the time and in some parts of the country, the weather is amazing to get out and to really engage families, new individuals. So let's talk about moving into the dollars. I love that you said dollars for doers. I've heard that before and I just, again, it's just one of my favorite phrases. So how do we find and cultivate these volunteer match grants? So there's, we'll start with some digital tools, right? If you're just getting started. So we, I think we have a blog we published that has like a list of some folks that have these programs. But beyond that, you know, double the donation oftentimes has a good list. That's a good one. You can use a service called Instrumental. They're a grant search software, two weeks free, I think to get started. I'm a, they're a good partner of ours. So I'm a big fan of what they do and they do a good job. So those are a couple of resources from a digital standpoint. But the other, you know, I think the other way to think about it is almost all of your national employers and even your really large regional ones will have a program like this, right? And so, you know, like I said, you know, your Walmarts, your Sam's Clubs, your, you know, your Starbucks of the world, right? And so if you look in your local community and you say, hey, you know, here are a couple of the big brands, right? You can reach out to them. There's almost always somebody that's responsible for coming up and thinking about what is a fun event? You know, what is the volunteering thing we're gonna do as a company? And if you can tee it up for them, right? That makes your job a heck of a lot easier and they'll be more than thankful and say, oh, this is great. I don't have to go search around anymore. Like you're excited about us. Great, well, we'll just, you know, we'll come to you instead. So I think that's a great way to get started. The other is using your board as an example. A lot of board members are, you know, are still working, right? And so, you know, asking them, do they have a program like this? If they're in a smaller company, you know, if they're a law firm or something, they might be inspired to do something similar, right? And then you could even think about leveraging your board to recruit somebody, right? So you say, oh, well, I don't have anyone from, you know, the large employer around here. Maybe I go and target that as, you know, somebody from my next board. And you can mine your database, right? So whether that's Bloomerang and your donor database or that Civic Champs and your, you know, volunteer database, you can see who has corporate emails, right? Right. And especially if you have a count, right, of them, the ones that have high count numbers probably, they probably already came for a corporate event actually, right? And so, and then some organizations, like we work with a lot of habitats do a great job of actually tracking different organizations that come out to them. And so you can certainly look through that list too. Yeah. You know, Jared, I'm a big fan of the business journal, I mean, my background's publishing. So of course, I would think this is a great idea, but I'm a big fan of the business journal publications, you know, that are around, I think they're in 26 marketplaces in America. And they always list, they do an amazing job of capturing who's active, who's doing what, by size, by revenue, by market share, all these different things. And those are ways in most communities to get a heck of a lot of information very quickly that's already been researched and cultivated for you just to act upon. And so that might be something for some of our viewers and listeners to look into because you're absolutely right on taking that information and going back to your board members and saying, who do you know on these lists? Right. You know, it could be as Jared, we had somebody that said this was kind of done and one of the board members was like, well, holy smokes, that's my next-door neighbor. Right. It's like, okay, how do we kind of build on this? How do we engage? You know, I love that you mentioned earlier in the conversation, Gung, about the culture of the workforce and really looking at certain generations and demographics of our workforce, oftentimes having this altruistic volunteer engagement program, if you will, is sometimes the decision-maker of working at the company versus not working at the company. And could you speak to us a little bit about that? I know it's a little bit of a curveball question unexpected, but I really feel like, you know, we had had or having currently like, you know, the quiet quitting, we've had a little bit of everything over these last, you know, several years, but I just feel like opportunities that give the employee and the employer a way to give back and to be of service is really like a big attraction right now. I mean, I think people have a lot of options, right? Like the market is still very tight from a labor market standpoint. And so, you know, people want to feel proud of where they work and who they're working for. And I think programs like this tell potential employees and your current ones that, you know, it's something about your values, right? As, you know, obviously we benefit a lot, right? As civic chancellor, you know, we're a certified benefit corporation. The work we do is directly impactful. We volunteer a lot, but to give folks a sense, right? We have both paid and unpaid internships, but even for our unpaid internships, we have a under 3% acceptance rate. And so we have hundreds of applicants every semester to volunteer their time to, you know, to help us across different things. And these are folks from across the country, right? So we had someone from Brown University this past semester, someone from Southern California with USC, somebody obviously here in Indiana. We had, you know, so it's all across the board. So that's the opportunity though, right? Just as an example of what companies could see or, you know, if you're able to, you know, connect with these potential employees, right? And in a certain way. Julia, do you remember the loaned executive? Like I feel like I'm starting to hear that come back a little bit more, Gung. And I'm curious if you're familiar with that, but it really would be, you know, a large corporation. It's almost, I would equate it to like a working sabbatical where, you know, they leave their company for a period of time, temporary, maybe 60 days, 90 days. And they are working with the nonprofit really in that loaned executive space. It could be a director of finance. It could be a marketing person. I'm curious if you've seen this kind of resurrecting, if you will. I don't know if I'm close enough to say what the trends are on that. We've certainly seen it. You know, if you're in a bigger city, I think this is definitely an opportunity, especially it's usually oftentimes for someone you want to promote that might not be quite ready for the role and they can sort of learn that experience certainly or maybe they're a little burned out, right? And they want to keep them as a retention play. The other opportunities, you know, like I said, I used to be a management consulting. And so we always had pro bono projects, right? And there was a some sort of, you know, nonprofit of choice, you know, usually led by a partner of some sort. But we would spend potentially, you know, couple months with a team, right? These are, you know, a half million dollars a month sort of billing rates that you're donating, right? To the organization for, you know, that's, you know, technically, right? I don't know if you can actually count, you know, a million and a half dollars of service, so to speak. And so if you have some of these type of organizations, that could also be really interesting, right? To sort of leverage. And they're often, again, as they're recruiting, we used to talk about that actually quite a bit to our potential hires to say, hey, you know, we also have these pro bono projects and you really highlight them and say, hey, you know, you can make an impact even while you're being a consultant. Yeah, I love it. You know, it's been such a fascinating thing to have you on today, Gung, because I really believe you're at the forefront of a wonderful movement in our country, but also one that has amazing benefits that we don't, we might not identify, right? It's really good for corporate culture. It's really great for training. It has all of these different things at play. And I think we're gonna be hearing more and more about this from that corporate side and what the value is. And I believe what you said right off the bat, this is a next gen issue that really is captivating retention, cultivation of candidates. And so if you're an organization that doesn't quite understand or buy into that, you're gonna feel the pain, you know, of the marketplace, really important. Gung Wang, CEO, Civic Champs, gotta check them out. It's a really interesting company, amazing website. I'm all over this now that I know that you're engaged with Steven, the amazing Steven Shattuck, which I did not know before we came on. So yeah, really, really cool. It's been a lot of fun to hear what you have to say and kind of follow your journey along. I'm putting you on the spot. Jared and I always love to ask this question, but where do you see yourself in the next five years? I mean, you started at the beginning of the pandemic. Where do you see Civic Champs navigating towards? Yeah, we survived. We survived and thrived. How was that? It's huge. That was a bit of our model for a couple of years there. So we'd love to, I think we try to make it easy for people to serve the communities that they care about, right? That's sort of fundamentally what we do. And so the degree that we can do that with more organizations and make things better, right? We'll do that. And so a few things we're thinking about. So one is we do lots of integrations now with different other platforms to make ourselves as more accessible, if you will. And then the other thing is we've been developing, let's call it very bespoke modules for very specific types of nonprofits and volunteering. So we have one, we just launched for mentorship. And so mentoring is a little bit different, right? And you wanna capture the engagement. And so we have something there. Super excited in two months, we'll launch something for food delivery or people transporting. So sort of dispatching your volunteer drivers, right? They need a little bit of a different experience. Okay, yeah. And so that's where I see us moving towards is, yes, we have our core platform, but then for all of these different nonprofits, we're really changing our software or making little modules that are very specific to their needs, right? Well, and my crystal ball gong is telling me that we're gonna have you back on. I agree. Yeah, cause I would love to go into those different verticals and how it impacts kind of that sub-sector under every industry and how it's just a little bit different. As you mentioned, mentoring versus delivery. And I just think that's fascinating. So thank you for joining us. Gong is very active also on LinkedIn. So please do look him up there. For those of you listening is G-E-N-G, W-A-N-G is Gong's name. So yeah, check him out. I know we're connected and really excited to learn more. I hope my crystal ball does not lie. It hasn't yet. So yeah, we'd love to have you back on. Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to be back. Thank you so much. For those of you that joined us, we're Julia and Jared. So really glad to be here and have these conversations. I'm always learning and I've got to say also, my endorphins are high already, just talking about volunteer engagement. Like just having that conversation is really exciting to me. So I also wanna say thank you to our amazing sponsors that allow us these opportunities. So shout out to our besties over at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique as well as the non-profit nerd. Again, thank you to these companies. They are invested in you, invested in your mission, invested in your community just as Civic Champs is. So Julia, I'll let you take us out my friend. Hey, this has been great. I really enjoyed this conversation and I love gung that you are understanding and connecting us to a more professional degree of managing volunteers because to your point, this is a POE, a point of entry and we need to be understanding this more fully and using it. So I'm energized as well, Jared. I love that you said that because this has been a fabulous conversation. Hey everybody, as we end every episode, we want to remind ourselves, our viewers, our listeners, our guests, our co-hosts to stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.